And the Angel was Silent...(Spoiler Alert be advised)

[DatDude]

I have to say i'd probly tell him how killing him would make me feel, and then ask him if knowing that if he still wanted me to kill him.

If he said yes i'd probly feel better about killing him because i'd think less of him for wishing such a think ( killing a friend ) on me. Something i'd never do, no matter what.

[Crazyman42]

Ok, prepare for a Crazyman42 knows to much about character post.

Personally I think that Shinji has been through a lot. So I would have been through a lot. If my father was a jerk and my mother had died, I would be looking for affection. I mean I ahve Misato, but she lacks in truth. Rei is too distant and Asuka doesn't care, so I couldn't kill him. He told me he cared.

[Olin of Xephon]

They say there is always a choice. And I belive this to be true, however, Shinji was faced with a very stark one.

Kill the only person who had ever offered him complete and unconditional love and save the world, or put everyone of his friends, family, the human race to death.

When faced with that kind of a situation, I don't belive there was to much of a choice for Shinji to make. It had already been made for him.
What made that choice so very difficult was Kaouru just standing there begging for it.

It would have been much easier if Kaouru had continued to fight Shinji.
Taunting him maybe, producing a angry response to everything he might do to the human race if he succeeded.
That was beyond Kaoru's nature however, he didn't want to hurt Shinji he wanted Shinji to understand why he MUST kill him.

UNfortunately it was that self sacrifing behavior that made the actual deed so difficult.

In Shinji's position, I would not have had to made a choice. I would have done what I had to. It just may have taken me more then a couple of minutes.

[houtaru]

I knew from the begining of that episode that he was taking advantage of Shinji. While I do think he eventually had feelings for Shinji, he would have destroyed the world and Shinji with it if that big white marshmellow thing wasn't lilith. Shinji knew he was betrayed, possibly even manipulated by the enemy. He knew he had to kill the enemy - that's his job as a pilot.

But, I think Shinji took a long time to make the decsion to kill him because he wanted to believe someone could love him.

I'm a lot like Shinji, so I would have killed him, but felt guilty afterwards.

[child-of-lillith]

Warning this topic will cover spoiler material for those who haven’t watched the entire NGE series!

The question is simply this, If you could have been in Shinji’s position at the climax of episode 24, could you have killed Kaworu? I decided not to make this a yes or no forum; because I never have been a fan of ‘yes or no’ questions.

So do you believe you could have killed him? View the situation from different points of view before answering, hindsight is always 20/20 they say. Remember back to when you first watched Kaworu’s demise at that moment, could you have killed him then?

Personally, I don’t think I could have killed him. The nature of the angels and their way of thinking is very important. Maybe it was just Kaworu’s angelic nature to seek out and find Adam. After all, the Angels themselves were seeking completion and wholeness through the union of Adam. Humans are the same way, indeed his nature is the same as our own,indeed, can you blame him for being so human? He wished for completion, but saw how hard humans were willing to fight for their future and continued existence, thus in the end faced with utter defeat he willing died so humanity could live.

its a lot harder then saying "well, he was just doing what he felt he had to" For Shinji, he was the first person to turn round and tell him "you are loved" Kawrou was the first person to tell Shinji he was worthwhile, the first to tell him he had a purpose he was needed.. it was a huge thing for him... but then he felt betrayl "You betrayed me, you betrayed me just like my father!" are the words he uses... after such uplifting feelings... he feels it was all a lie, and he had to battle these two conflicting emotions...

personally i could have, but i would have looked at it objectively.. he is an angel, and our enemy... but for Shinji, i think it was much more, perhaps even a way of 'killing' his father, a way of realeasing some of that hatred he held for his father... hatred bred from his need to be respected by him

[Hunter21]

Lets see would I kill Kaworu hmm.. thinks to self-Tag name is Hunter 21 for a good reason, -Have a huge soft spot for carnivores, and he did kill a cat (favorite carnivor), -He did ask for it... Hope when your head hits the ground it doesn't make too big a mess, and some one get me a napkin, I got angel guts all over my hand.

[Magnus]

Isn't the question "would you kill kaworu?", a question that can't really be answered homestly. I mean, you can try to put yourself in his place, to imagine what it would be like to go through what Shinji has, but at the end of the day how you THINK you will react to a situation and how you actually react are two different things.

[Olin of Xephon]

...how you THINK you will react to a situation and how you actually react are two different things

Of course we couldn't really know how we would react to such a situation.
We can however, speculate. And try to come up with a answer based on our behavioral patterns, moral obligations, and various points of view.

[kosure]

I don't think I would have. I think theres a little bit of Shinji in all of us, (or at least me for sure) Specifically the part that wants to be loved. Regardless of who or what Kaworu was, he seemed to love Shinji unconditionally, which was all he was really looking for. I think I might have welcomed the end of the world at that point, just so I wouldn't have to destroy someone who might truly love me.

[Olin of Xephon]

That makes perfect sense.

I'm just reluctant to underestimate a human being's survival instinct.

[sadsadshinji]

Shinji has very little survival instinct...

[Evangelionfreak]

I WOULD NEVER EVER EVER KILL KAWORU...that is all

[Shnooks]

I would have murdered the bastard!

[Ryousanki King]

"I would pet him and hug him and name him George..."

Oh, killing him. Right. Naw, prolly not. Then I could clone a chick version of him and date her.

[BobBQ]

I wouldn't, simply because keeping him alive would probably be a good thing for NERV in terms of the bigger picture... and because it would piss off SEELE, to whom Kaworu was just as much a disposable asset as everyone else.

But first, a slight tangent: during World War I, my Scotch great-grandfather spent a week living with a German soldier in the no-man's-land between their respective armies. Neither of them spoke the other's language, but they stuck together and helped each other survive long enough to each to find his way back to his own forces. They did so because they recognized that, language and uniform aside, they were both still human. When they depended on each other to survive, the politics became completely irrelevant.

In NGE, it is repeatedly stressed that the Angels are much more closely related to humans than their myriad forms would suggest. They were on Earth before, and their kind were sometimes able to move among humans without causing any inexplicable disasters.

It is also pointed out that in the series that each Angel to attack Tokyo-3 seems to be smarter than those who came before it. Tabris, being the seventeenth, was obviously no less intelligent than the humans around him, but that doesn't mean he was all-knowing. What he knew, or thought he knew, about the nature of Third Impact was likely little more than what SEELE, that elite cabal of puppet masters, allowed him to know.

I think that, in the end, neither Kaworu nor Shinji nor any of the others ever bothered to step back and look at the bigger picture. The Angels came in search of Adam because they were compelled to do so, like human drug addicts. Kaworu was able to overcome that compulsion and gave Shinji a chance to stop him, claiming that only one of the pair could survive and that Shinji was the one who deserved to live.

But what if Kaworu was wrong?

His merely being inside the Geofront, less than a kilometer from Adam and Lilith, didn't cause Third Impact. Would Third Impact, or anything of the sort, have occured if Kaworu had decided not to seek out Adam and merely continued to live as the Fifth Children? I don't think so. Had things turned out that way, I suspect that Shinji would have been much happier, SEELE would have been up a creek with no outboard (because we can't reasonably expect those sedentary old farts to handle a paddle, can we?), Third Impact would have been prevented (or at least radically altered), the world would not be majorly screwed up and the rest of us little people would not have to become one with the Tang.

But then we wouldn't have our requisite Gainax Ending, would we?

[tinmeigut]

An order is an order. When Shinji found out Kaworu cheated he's totally pissed off, and his orders are to kill Kaworu. Sometimes when we're living in deception it's very difficult to tell whether what we're doing is right or wrong. No one really know what's the best for themselves. Almost everyone in Nerv didn't know the really intentions behind, and those who know the truth didn't even bother to give it a second thought as to what would happen. They just had their own plans. Those who are deceived only thought killing the Angels would be their only job.

Well Kaworu appeared in a human form, and killing him would certainly be a lot more difficult than the other monster-like Angels. But Kaworu had said already: if he didn't die, the human race would go extinct. If I were Shinji I think I would just do the same thing. My orders are to eliminate all Angels, and the last one is in my hand. Even though he was my friend, letting him live might cause a big disaster. That was against my morality, but he said he wanted to die didn't he? And I was holding him already. Who knows whether he would kill me if I let him go?

[Timstuff]

I'd do it, and I wouldn't wait 60 seconds before I did, either. Kaworu was a tool for the destruction of the human race, and his "friendship" with Shinji was fairly superficial, so he really wasn't loosing very much. But he was so desperate for a friend at that point that Kaworu probably seemed like the best friend he'd ever had.

[Evangelionfreak]

Kaworu is too nice and too pretty to die (300 posts hurray!)

[Kaworu Nagisa]

Woah, why did he kill the cat? 0 - O
Hmm...well, going with my theory that Shinji and K actually did in fact have sex, I'd already fulfil one desire. Also, he sort of asked for death since he couldn't die himself. He saved humanity by betraying his own kind and it was because of his love for Shinji. So, yeah, I'd think I'd mercy kill him too.

[Mr. Tines]

Woah, why did he kill the cat? 0 - O

It was an orphan kitten in the ruins of Tokyo-3, that Shinji said he wouldn't be able to look after; so Kaworu was all "I'll kill it now to save it starving to death."